[NFBCS] Tip: Setting up Apple Watch 6 with VoiceOver, Bug Workaround

[charles.vanek at gmail.com]

Hi all,

I got my Apple Watch 6 last week.  Then I spent quite a lot of time with
Apple support and messing around with the watch trying to get VoiceOver to
actually speak.  Apple Support knew right away that this was a known issue,
basically when you get the watch in setup you can turn on VoiceOver by
triple clicking the digital crown.  That works all fine.  However VoiceOver
will still be on but not speak once you get to the setup step on your iPhone
for Accessibility.  The problem that occurs to some users according to Apple
is that the full voice synthesizer doesn't download to the watch reliably.
We tried several workarounds to attempt to get the Watch to re-download
without any success like changing the voice profile to English UK.

 

What I did find to work was I reset the watch to Factory Settings.  Then
took all the same steps by triple clicking the crown to get VoiceOver on to
help me through setup.  Once it was to the point of using the Watch app on
iPhone when I was asked to have VoiceOver On or Off, I turned it off.  Then
completed all the setup from iPhone.  Once iPhone said everything was done I
then from iPhone turned VoiceOver On in the Watch app.  It took a minute or
so and with success Siri was now speaking for VoiceOver on my Watch and
everything has been working great.  Previously I had the Apple Watch 3 and I
must say I do really like how fast it is and the voice quality Is a touch
better.

 

Hope that helps if anyone else has bought a Watch.  Apple Support says
hopefully they'll get the bug fixed soon but for me it was about a week of
waiting and I finally gave up and tried this.

 

Best,

Charles